Persona: The Castle of shadows
by King of Ferrets
Summary: My first attempt at a fanfic story, does contain some elements from Nocturne namely that the demi-fiend is a persona, but not enough that it should be labeled a crossover. critisizms are welcome. WORK IN PROGRESS
1. Character stats

I don't own any of the characters except my own blah blah blah.

I am doing my stats out of 40 to make things simple. And for skills, I'm using percentages of my OC's stamina for cost since when in the games, when hp hits 0 people faint.

Sora Sato

Sex: Male

Age: 15

Height: 5'9

Bio: Sora once lived in Tatsumi Port Island. When he was 5, the explosion that created Tartarus happened. Some shrapnel from the blast pierced his home and would have killed him had he not been sitting down at the time. As it was, it did graze his head leaving a scar across his forehead. He lived there until the end of middle school when he and his family moved to inaba since it was cheaper. His life was actually pretty uneventful since then. But after the red fog incident, Sora found the black key where Sho's tower once stood. Being the "creative" kid he was, he called it death's key based on an anime he once watched. When he went home, he decided to see what it went to, as well as goof off with it. So he stuck it in his door to pretend to lock it, but when he opened the door, it lead to the entrance of a huge castle. Simply amazed, he immediately went exploring. When he went inside, there was a bench, and on that bench, sat an evoker. Sora thought it was a gun, so he grabbed it. As soon as he picked up the evoker, a shadow appeared. Sora tried to shoot the thing, but an evoker isn't a gun. Sora ran from what he called "the shadowy blob dude" or at least he tried to. The Maya was faster than him and cut him off at the door. Sora though he was going to die. Every instinct screamed at him, and he brought the evoker to his head. He pulled the trigger, and said the magic word.

Personas

**Daisoujou**:

Arcana: Hierophant

Weak: Dark

Null: Light

Resist: fire, ailments

St: 12

Ma: 30

En: 20

Ag: 15

Lu: 13

Skills

Violet flash: Medium light based damage (5%)

Samsara: instant kill anything without light resistance (With light resistance, 80% chance) (50%)

Endure Dark: survives mudo based skill with 1% stamina once per fight (passive)

Salvation: restores full stamina plus cures ailments (45%)

Agilao: Medium fire based Damage on one target: (5%)

**Alice**

Arcana: Death

Weak: Light

Null: Dark

Resist: None

St: 11

Ma: 31

En: 15

Ag: 20

Lu: 12

Skills

Spirit drain: medium darkness damage plus drain 20% of the damage as stamina (5%)

Dekunda: removes all debuffs from all allies (10%)

Dekaja: removes all buffs from all enemies (10%)

Endure light: survives hama based skill with 1% stamina once per fight (Passive)

Die for me!: instant kill anything without dark resistance (With dark resistance, 80% chance) (50%)

**Matador**

Arcana: Death

Weak: Fire

Null: dark

Resist: wind

St: 17

Ma: 10

En: 16

Ag: 25

Luck: 11

Skills

Berserk: medium physical damage to all foes 1x to 3x (10%)

Sukukaja: raises agility on one ally (3%)

Sukunda: lowers Agility on one enemy (4%)

Survive light: 50% chance of surviving one hama based attack 1 time (passive)

Garula: medium wind based damage on one target (5%)

**Demi fiend**

Arcana: World

Weak: None

Null: None

Resist: everything even almighty

St: 40

Ma: 40

En: 40

Ag: 40

Lu: 1

Skills

Jive Talk: lets the user try and tame a shadow into a persona (doesn't work on bosses) (0%)

Javelin Rain: heavy physical damage to all enemies plus 20% chance of mute (70%)

Freikugal: Mega almighty damage on one target (80%)

Gaea rage: Channels Gaea's wrath to deal ultimate almighty damage to all allies and enemies (Cannot be cast at less than full stamina) (100%)

Lucifer's call: survives casting of Gaea Rage with 1% stamina once per battle (Passive)

**Personal Artifacts**

Mistilteinn: Heart item from an old persona, an unbreakable wooden sword that can hurt shadows

Death's Key: a magic key that when used on a door, said door will lead to what Sora calls the shadow palace, an impossibly huge castle filled with shadows

Fusion Set: a table and with a blue table cloth with a mysterious diagram on it. It allows Sora to fuse his own personas. He isn't very good at it though so his mistake rate is about triple what it is for Igor

Evoker: Found by Sora in the Shadow Palace.


	2. Chapter 1

I don't own any of the characters aside from my own etc. etc. etc.

The air was cold and oppressive, the light dim, within this land stands a castle, one so big that physics says it should have collapsed under its own weight. Inside this castle, the air was even more oppressive. A scream can be heard followed by footsteps.

"Damn it, what is that thing?! This stupid piece of metal doesn't work, I've got to get out of here!" the screams are coming from a boy while he runs from a monster. He tries to get to the door so he can leave, but the beast is faster. It waits by the door. It's been so long since a human has walked the halls. The beast hungers. It moves ever closer to the boy making him back up. The beast roars making the boy soil himself in fear of the creature. The beast prepares its charge soon it shall feast on the boy's mind leaving a husk where once was a human.

"God, oh god, oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god OH GOD! It's going to kill me; it's going to kill me!" He had just pissed his pants, and was about to start crying. He was wondering how it had come to this. He Sora Sato was going to die. "I-I-I don't want to die! I want to live!" he felt something in his mind break and reform. It felt like something had reached in, scooped out part of him with a cold spoon and replaced it with a bowl of soup. "He, he he, ha, haha, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Sora stood up, and faced the beast, a mad grin on his face. His every instinct screamed at him, and he obeyed. He put the "gun" to his temple, and shot. "Per-so-na."

**Play song: battle for survival (digital devil saga 2)**

The sound of glass breaking, a dark tornado appears in front of Sora. When the tornado dies down, another boy stands. He is slightly taller than Sora, with pale skin yellow eyes, and strange markings. "tho art I, and I am tho, by choosing to defy death I cometh, I am the Demi Fiend, the Demon with a human's heart!" with those words, the demi fiend dashed at the beast, and ripped it apart with his bare hands roaring. More Beasts showed up, and he tore them apart bare handed. Sora watched dumbfounded as the demi fiend tore into the beasts becoming drenched in black ooze as he did so. With one huger roar, another group of beasts showed up, the sheer amount so much that he couldn't see that floor. To this, the demi fiend turned black and his markings glowed teal. He raised both arms, roared, and threw them earthbound. Beams of light glowed, and radiated skyward. Then there was a sound, one that Sora couldn't put into words, the world went white, and all the beasts were gone, goo and all. Sora then found he had almost no energy left, and was on the verge of passing out. The demi fiend stared at Sora and vanished.

**End Song**

It's been a few months since his first foray into the shadow palace. At school, Sora sits at his desk looking to the entire world like he's taking notes and listening to his teacher, but in reality, he was making note of shadow weaknesses. Sora liked calling them shadows since they melted into black goo like a shadow would before light. "Let's see" he mumbles to himself, " blobby dude with blue mask has no light or dark resistance, lamp bird resists dark, Hulk Hogan nulls fire but is weak to wind, the tank nulls light and dark and can't be tamed. Either that or I'm not strong enough." He decided that he should check out the room where he found the fusion table and see if there was anything that would help lower his mistake rate. "Hmm maybe I shouldn't go in there, when I grabbed the small table and cloth a huge shadow with twin guns showed up. I might have been able to get him with demi fiend, but I had recently used Alice to wipe out a group of dudes, and that's an exhausting move to use." He was still mumbling to himself while taking notes when the bell rang. He wasn't paying attention though. He would have kept siting there until a teacher shooed him out if his nosy classmate Rise Kujikawa hadn't poked him; startling him into taking a swing at her. He stopped himself before he hit her.

Rise was chatting with some friends about going shopping that weekend when she saw her classmate Sora sitting alone as usual. She wondered if he had no friends, and became a little concerned. As Risette, she had been placed on a pedestal of untouchability and couldn't make friends. She had to stay in a hotel room and count clouds since if she went out on the town then someone would slip something into her drink and have their way with her not to mention the mass amounts of paparazzi. But since she had met sempai and the investigation team, she had opened up a lot more, she was confident; she was able to make friends. She knew she was lonely, but she didn't realize just how lonely she was with no one by her side. Because of this experience, she went out of her way to try and include those who had been left out. She would talk to the ones who ate by themselves day after day, the ones who because of their isolation had confidence issues. She noticed that ever since golden week had ended, Sora seemed to drift off into his own world every day. She had seen him talking with other students so she assumed that he had some friends, but when everyone came back from break, he would sit at his desk for hours straight only stopping to run off for a minute then returning. After a week of seeing him just sit there by himself she started talking to him to try and get him back into the world and to get him to make friends. She had been interacting with him for a few months, but she couldn't tell if he was making other friends, or he was being ignored by others. She had tried asking the known big gossipers, to see if they knew. They hadn't really cared enough about him since he didn't interact with the gossipers to bother checking, but since she had asked them, rumors had started popping up everywhere that she had a thing for Sora. She insisted that they were wrong, but even her friends had to ask about the rumors since it was the talk of the town. She did manage to get the others to see the error of their ways, and luckily for her Teddie is one of the big gossipers so that died down pretty fast. Today she was going to try again to get him out of his shell. She pocked his shoulder, and he was so startled that he was swinging his arm at her head. He stopped about half way towards her, but she had to wonder why his reaction was as it was. She had snuck up on kanji a few times and he had given a similar reaction. She wondered if he was like kanji was and was involved with gangs. Her train of thought was brought to a screeching halt when he said, "Sorry about that kujikawa-san, I was making note of shadow weaknesses and resistances." Rise jumped as if poked by a hot iron. Did he just mention shadows?

Sora saw Rise jump back and was confused, normally, when he mentioned shadows, people thought he was talking about some game he played and left it at that. So why did she look like she just stepped on a grave? He ignored it, and went back to his notes. "Let's see, where was I?" he started to mumble to himself. "Oh yeah, the totem poles." He continued his mumbling and would have kept on going if Rise hadn't interrupted him again. Didn't she know this stuff was life and death for him? He considered this and thought to himself of course she doesn't. He did miss the question though. "What was that? I missed the question." "I said how do you know about shadows?" Sora was about to give her a snarky remark but then it hit him, "wait, how do **you** know about shadows?" Sora asked dumbfounded.

Tell me what you guys think about pacing. And no, Sora is not a wild card, his power doesn't come from bonds, his strength is his own so that means yes, Yu could beat him since he has friends backing him up. I messed with some values on Sora's personas to make it a bit more fair, as well as changed the description on Gaea rage. I have yet to decide whether Naoto could block Gaea rage with shield of justice though. I going to be using golden ultimate personas, and I'm ignoring Rise's persona transforming to a fighting one since that's hard to write for. As for Yu's personas, I am using the ultimate ones from his social links plus Izanagi since that's kind of his thing.


	3. Chapter 2

_I'm going to start off with a few things I want to clarify. One is my stamina system that I am using since it's unclear. Here's an example. Sora uses a skill that uses 5% of his stamina, that's like doing a 200 meter dash. Using Samsara or die for me uses 50% of his stamina, that's like going 10 rounds in the ring without stopping. Now for the big qualm, "Demi fiend op, pls nerf." Yes he is really powerful, but considering what I mentioned about stamina, it's not something to use lightly. And then there is Gaea Rage. Using it leaves Sora so drained, that without Lucifer's call, it would make Sora black out right then and there, and with Lucifer's call if someone pushed him even lightly, he would fall, and he wouldn't be able to get back up, combined with the fact that I minimized Demi fiends luck means that Gaea Rage can be __**dodged**__. That makes for a very huge risk vs reward. Also since it's not obvious, Sora doesn't have a compendium, meaning if he fuses a persona, it's gone, there's no getting it back aside from refusing it. On that note, I may or may not swap out his personas if I deem it interesting towards plot progression._

Sora up until this point was actually fond of the Junes food court. The stuff was pretty cheap, and pretty good quality. But now, he was sitting there surrounded by Rise and her friends, all of them just staring at him. He counted the people that he knew. "Let's see," he mumbled idly, "shirogane-san, Amagi-sempai, Satonaka-sempai, Tatsumi-san, Kujikawa-san." Even for a very social person it was an uncomfortable situation to be in. Why is he here? He complained in his head.

**Flashback to yesterday**

Rise and Sora were just staring blankly at each other when her friend Kanji came into the classroom. "Oy, Rise-chan, could I borrow your notes?" he saw them staring at each other, and walked over. "Rise-chan, does this mean the rumors are true?" Kanji deadpanned. This brought her out of her stupor, and she turned around and smacked kanji upside the head. "No they aren't!" she shrieked. "Geez, alright alright, I was just teasing you, no need to bite my head off. So anyways, notes." Rise rolled her eyes and said, "Kanji-kun, this is slightly more important, Sato-san here knows about shadows." Kanji paused for a moment before it hit him, "Wait you mean those shadows?" "Yes you dolt, those ones!" Rise said a bit louder than she intended. "Ok, I'll call everyone, and we will meet at the Junes food court after school tomorrow. I'll ask Ted to keep watch in the TV world so he can't try and escape there." While Rise and Kanji were talking, Sora was trying to slip by them and escape. That plan was cut short by Kanji's hand on his shoulder. "One moment Sato-Chan!" Kanji said his voice dangerously pleasant. "Tomorrow after school, meet me and Rise-chan at the school gate, and we'll have a nice talk at the Junes food court, and don't think you can hide in the TV world, as we have a friend there who will find you." Kanji released Sora's shoulder. Sora had no Idea what Kanji meant by TV world, but he felt like it was a bad Idea to ask. "Stupid 1 luck." he murmured to himself while he went home.

**End Flashback**

"Well, ok, I'm here, and you're all just staring at me." Sora deadpanned. "So what, am I just supposed to spill my guts or something? Cause I have no idea what you guys want." Still silence. At this point Yosuke walks up the table bearing drinks for people. He sits down, and passes drinks to people. "Sorry about Kanji yesterday" Yosuke said. "Rise gave him an impressive lecture about manners after you left. You should have been there, that was not something you see every day" People laughed, and the tension was cleared by the sound of laughter. "We don't want to scare you, we're just curious about what you know. Kanji can be a bit over zealous sometimes. I don't blame him though. After golden week, I was expecting Sho to materialize out of thin air and attack me." Sora shifted a bit, not sure what to think, he had the key if he needed an emergency escape, but he hoped he was being overly cautious. "oookaay then." Sora said, "So what is it exactly you want to know? Cause I really see no point as to my being here. I mean, whoop de freaken who, I know about shadows, nobody would believe me so who could I tell." Sora was agitated, and he knew it was showing in his voice. "well," Yosuke said, "I guess I should give you some backstory as to why we wanted to meet you." Yosuke then went on to explain the events of the murder investigation, and the P1 competition they had to face. Over the course of the story, Sora had relaxed a bit so that he didn't feel too nervous since he could see why anyone with knowledge of shadows might be dangerous. Sora was surprised that the Kirijo group was helping, and that robots were a thing. But really surprised him was, "Wait, the red fog was actually a thing? I thought it was a dream cause I caught a nasty cold over golden week." "Yup," Yosuke said. "It was real. Because of our experiences with Mitsuru-san and her team, we've been a bit cautious. It was my idea, with our leader off and away, I figured that if we encountered someone who knew something about the shadows, we should ask them what they knew. Although, I think Kanji took things a bit too far." He said with a glare at the man in question. "hey hey hey, I was doing what I thought you wanted me to do." Idly, sora thought that kanji was a bit if an idiot as well as a tad hot-blooded.

"Ok, so what do you want to know, cause I've never been to this TV world before, so I'm not sure I can help." At this statement people just stared at him. "You're doing it again, you're just staring." Sora complained. Teddie then walked up to the group, and said, "Guys, why did you start without me? You said this was bear-y important." Not expecting Teddie, Sora jumped up, and reached for an evoker which wasn't there. "Wow, easy there." Chie said, "That's just Teddie." In her head, Chie was impressed with Sora's reaction time. "Anyway, Teddie, you're the one who's late, we told you when we would be here. Don't worry though you didn't miss anything, Yosuke was just telling Sora-san here about our adventures in the TV world." "Speaking of that," Rise said, "Sora-san has never heard of the TV world, yet he was cataloging shadow weaknesses meaning he has a lot of interaction with them." Rise took a breath and then asked Sora, "If you don't go into the TV to fight shadows, then how do you know of them?" "Oh, that's easy, the shadow Palace." Sora said bluntly. They all just stared at him. "You're doing it again." He complained


	4. Chapter 3

"Ugh, can you guys please stop starring like a bunch of slack jawed idiots whenever I say something unexpected?! It's making it kind of hard to explain anything! Next time you guys do it, I'm going home; I have homework for piss sake!" Sora yelled very annoyed. Yosuke came to his senses first and said defensively, "Hey don't yell at us, it's just the name shadow palace sounds kind of ominous, we're just a little surprised." "I don't know what's so surprising considering the shit you guys went through." Sora grumbled. "Hell, I figured after meeting a gods damned robot, I figured that nothing would surprise you anymore." "Hey!" Chie exclaimed, "Aigis-san isn't just a robot, she's a person same as the rest of us!" Sora closed his eyes for a count of three while idly thinking that he had to do something about his temper. "Anyway," Sora said with irritation still in his voice. "Can we get back on topic, I would like to finish before the day is out. I swear, dancing with that stupid one eyed gunslinger shadow has got to be easier than this." Rise gasped, "You've fought the reaper?" Sora snorted, "That's your name for it? Man that's lame." He then gave it a second of thought, "you know," he started before someone could interrupt him, "now that I actually think about it that actually seems kind of fitting… wait, I'm' getting distracted. Ok, so what is it you guys want to know?" they all started talking at once. "what" "How" "Reaper" "Palace" "Geez!" Sora exclaimed, "You guys are like a bunch of kittens all going for the same piece of string." Sora let out an exasperated sigh.

"Ok, Hanamura-sempai, you ask the questions. Best I can tell you're the least likely to give me a headache" "Ok then, first off, what is the shadow palace?" "The shadow palace is just that, a palace full of shadows. The air is cold and oppressive, and aside from one room I've barricaded off to use as a safe zone, it's crawling with shadows. The outside of the castle is black, and you can't see the individual bricks. It has the funny cone roofs that you see in Middle Eastern palaces." Sora paused for a second before saying, "Or it could be Russian since I haven't bothered to learn the difference." "Aside from the one room I use as a hub, the layout of the place changes daily. I have no idea how big it is, or why it exists. As for why it's the called the shadow palace, well I liked the name since it's a palace full of shadows." "Ok," Yosuke said, "so when did you first discover the place?" "It was during Golden week, I had just recovered from my cold after the red fog had cleared, and I was out for a walk trying to build by strength up since my legs still felt barely more solid than jelly. I was spaced out; just ambling along, when I found a black key. Nearly slipped over it too, I was that lost in thought. Scared the hell out of me when I nearly slipped. I picked it up, and figured I could ask whose it was at school if someone didn't ask about missing their key, small town and all. When I went home from my walk, I joked how it was death's own key. If you hadn't guessed, I was basing it on that anime that had just come out the week prior, but that's beside the point. Anyway, I went back up to my room, and deciding that it might be amusing, I stuck the key into my door's lock, and made the unlocking motion. The thing was purely decorative since it locked via deadbolt from the inside, so I figured that nothing bad would happen like locking myself out." Sora cleared his throat and steals Teddie's drink since he hadn't drunk from it. He takes a big gulp and continues on. "Righty then, let's see… oh yeah, the door. When I opened the door, I was outside of the shadow palace. Unfortunately, I didn't have the common sense to turn around, and throw the key out a window. So I went inside; I found something that looked like a gun, so I picked it up thinking it was a real gun. As it turns out, it wasn't. A shadow attacked me almost as soon as I picked it up. It chased me for a bit, but I couldn't get away, I discovered it wasn't a gun, when I tried to shoot it. I honestly thought I was going to die. It was at that point that I felt the weirdest feeling. It was like something took a cold spoon and used it to scoop part of myself, and replaced it with a bowl of soup if that makes any sense. It was at that point, every instinct I had was screaming at me to shoot myself in the head with the not gun. Weird I know, I mean, what kind of instincts would tell you to put a gun shaped item to your head and pull the trigger? But anyway, I did just that, I put the thing to my head, pulled the trigger, and summoned my persona. Since then, I've been going into that castle to explore once a week. It also serves as the mother of all workouts."

Sora finishes the story, and finishes his stolen drink. "So, any other questions?" Everyone is silent for a moment before Naoto asks, "you said that you go exploring once a week, what day you usually go explore the Shadow Palace?" "Saturday," Sora starts to explain, "I like exploring then since we don't have school on Sundays." Then with a minor note of bitterness Sora says, "Since today is Saturday, I would be exploring right now if not for you guys." Sora opens his mouth to say something else, then stops since he thought of a good idea. "Oh I just got an idea, since you guys are so interested in the place, how about I just take you there?" Sora grabs a piece of paper from his bag and scribbles his address on it. "Ok, here is my address; you guys go get whatever gear you need, and meet at my place in an hour, I need to do some homework anyway."


End file.
